Ludwig von Mises Institute

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) rose to power in German politics as leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, also known as the Nazi Party. Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator from 1934 to 1945. His policies precipitated World War II and the Holocaust.[1]

His book, Mein Kampf, revealed that he coveted the Ukraine and that his fundamental strategical idea was to embark upon the conquest of Russia after having definitely and forever annihilated France.[2] Military historian R.H.S. Stolfi argues that Hitler could have taken Moscow and ended the war circa August 1941 had it not been for his siege mentality.[3]

Ludwig von Mises notes the ironies in Hitler's program: "A dark-haired man whose bodily features by no means fitted the prototype of the fair-haired Aryan master race, arrogated to himself the gift of discovering the only doctrine adequate to the German mind and of expelling from the ranks of the Germans all those who did not accept this doctrine whatever their bodily characteristics might be. No further proof is needed of the insincerity of the whole doctrine."[4] Another fact he points out, which is ironic in light of fascism's usually being considered anticommunist, is that "Doctor Marx, the manufacturer and 'exploiter' Engels, and Lenin, the scion of the Russian gentry, were certainly not of proletarian background. But Hitler and Mussolini were genuine proletarians and spent their youth in poverty."[5]